(non-parents probably shouldn't read this--it's not funny, and is probably rather scary to someone without kids)
I think the hardest thing for me to get used to as a parent is the anger that I sometimes feel towards my wife and my kids. It's not that I walk around constantly in a fug of rage and spite, it's that my sanity has been worn away from lack of sleep and the unceasing responsibility of responding to and taking care of two small children.
For example, nine times out of then when William puts his hand on Raley's back, and we say "No, William, don't push your sister", and he takes his hand away, then shoves her really hard, we rhetorically ask "why don't you listen!" after telling him off. But on the tenth time something snaps and I'm consumed by rage and all I want to do pick him up and shake him. Which, fortunately, I resist doing.
This, as I said, is something I just wasn't expecting. I blow up one in a million times in real life--it has to be a really bad day and a really big frustration for me to lose it. But since having kids, I've been so tired and so permanently on, that cracks appear more often. And nobody warned me that I'd feel this way towards the kids that I love, love more than anything in the world, kids that I couldn't, wouldn't, dare imagine hurting.
Apparently this isn't uncommon, it's just not talked about. One of the few books that promises to break the silence is The Bitch in the House. I loved the NPR review of the book and the interview with its authors, but the book itself disappointed. Every woman seemed to be from New York City, and none of their prime stressors seemed to really mesh with ours, even the one whose story had seemed so convincing on NPR.
Even more disappointing is that the book didn't talk about how to deal with it. Walking away is really the only thing we've found that helps. If you feel the rubber band tightening and your fingers are starting to reach for their throats, they're winding you up. Just say "sorry kids, I have to take a break" and leave the room. This doesn't help when the snappage comes out of the blue, but it's definitely made life easier for us. Knowing you don't have to deal well with every situation, only most of them, takes away a lot of the sense that we're failing our kids if we bow out. (How irrational is this sense--like staying with them and erupting is better for them!)
So if you're a parent and wondering whether you're the only freak who loves his or her kids but sometimes feels so unhinged that you, you who has never approved of spanking or any form of corporal punishment, you just want to slam them in a door, you're not alone.
Thank you for listening. Yes, there were some times of stress over this weekend :-)
--Nat
Re:New book
jmm on 2003-03-17T21:52:23
They grow out of the nutshell too quickly! Ouch, that's even worse than the bunghole theory of parenting. (Keep your kids in a barrel, feed them through the bunghole. At 18, hammer in the bung.)Mind you, there've been times when I was tempted - having a son who is severely ADD leads to frequent instances of that rage and after it's over I feel extra guilty knowing that he has very limited control over the actions that prompted the rage.
Re:Relatively New
gnat on 2003-03-19T03:18:40
I think another thing that has really helped me is realizing the benefits of calming down. When I calm down, I get to enjoy my family instead of being mad at them, or them being mad at me. You can't beat that sort of reward.That is so true! I got infinitely more pleasure this morning out of explaining to William how to get his sister to put her crayon into the bag that he was holding, than I did in yelling at him for grabbing the crayon from her, which only resulted in both of them crying.
We avoided tears, I got to teach William a valuable skill for dealing with his sister, and he had the pleasure of doing something successfully instead of the frustrating of trying to clean up (by grabbing Raley's crayon), failing, and then being yelled at by his parents.
What a cool insight. Thanks, pudge.
--Nat
I deal with it by getting away. Once the kids are in school (or daycare, etc..) and out of your hands for a while that's a great help. *Enjoy* the time away from them. In really bad weeks, I'll leave my kid at latchkey for an extra few minutes after work and get the grocery shopping out of the way or something.
That's great when you can leave them, but when you're trapped in the house with kids other solutions are necessary. Confining them to their room, or anywhere at the other end of the house is great. Close the door on them (not on you!). Letting them veg in front of a TV in a far away room for a few minutes is a nice break.
Any feelings of guilt should be quashed realizing that kids need to learn to take care of themselves. Have your "with the kids time" and your "kids are learning to be independant little creatures" time.
The key is distraction and praise. Not always easy but it does pay off. Whenever DanDan is doing something he shouldn't, rather tell him NOT to do something, we try and tell him what he can do, or get him to do something completely unrelated (like can you see the squirrels in the garden?). When he is doing something right, especially if we didn't ask him to, we make a big deal of saying how good he is.
Another thing is never to back down when you've said no to them. If you've ever given in, then you'll know that from then on they will keep pestering you, as they'll think you'll finally given in again and let them have their way. Nicole and I prefer to say when something will happen and then make every attempt to do it, when we said we would. For example if DanDan wants 'choc choc' and he can't have it until after dinner, once we tell him, he'll happily finish his dinner knowing he's going to get a 'choc choc' afterwards.
There was a BBC TV series here in the UK last year, that looked into all this kind of thing, and it was amazing to see some of the results. They took several families who thought they had problem children and showed them other methods of dealing with each child. One father was always losing his rag with his children. After a few weeks of using a different approach to dealing with them and he was amazed to discover that he now bearly raises his voice.
Obviously every child is different and it may take a while to find the right approach. But once you find it, it pays dividends. DanDan now carries the toast and cereal when we're making breakfast. Give him a few years and I'll have him making a Full English Breakfast in the morning for me
